ORBIT 35

Panel Discussions​

The Gawad ALTipunan featured two panel discussions about spaces that cultivate alternative cinema production in the country—the schools and local film criticism. 

1990s

GAWAD ALTERNATIBO AND FILM PEDAGOGY: TEACHING ALTERNATIVE CINEMA IN THE PHILIPPINES

As one of the pioneering platforms for student filmmakers to exhibit their works publicly, the growth of the Gawad Alternatibo parallels the development of local film and communication schools in the country. Positioned at the juncture of transnational, political, and environmental shifts during the 1990s, this panel initiates a discussion on how film and communication schools play a crucial role in nurturing, enriching, and cultivating alternative cinema practices that respond to the neoliberal pivot in local market and industries. The panel aims to delve into the paradigm shift proposed by historian Nick Deocampo, which reimagines the filmic medium as a pedagogical tool for sustaining alternative cinema as a disruptive and productive space amidst evolving sociocultural and technological landscapes.

 

Panel Moderator

Seymour Sanchez

Technical Consultant for Academic Linkages, Film Development Council of the Philippines

Seymour Barros Sanchez is an advocacy filmmaker, communication and film lecturer, freelance writer, content and creative producer, creative and technical consultant, and a former producer for news and current affairs programs.

Panel MEMBERS

Nick Deocampo

Associate Professor, UP Film Institute

Nick Deocampo is a filmmaker and a film historian. He is a member of the faculty at the U.P. Film Institute in the University of the Philippines - Diliman. He took up his Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies at New York University as a Fulbright-Hays scholar and received his Certificate in Film as a French Government scholar in Paris, France. His prizewinning works include Oliver, Revolutions happen like refrains in a song, and The Sex Warriors and the Samurai. As a film historian, he has authored books that have won four times the National Book Award. This year he received Spain’s highest award for culture, the Casa Asia Award, and also the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Film Development Council of the Philippines. He has recently been elected as chair of the UNESCO Philippines Memory of the World Committee. His recent publications include Alternative Cinema: The Unchronicled History of Alternative Cinema in the Philippines and the three-volume Sine Tala Series.

Sari Dalena

Filmmaker/Professor, UP Film Institute

Sari Dalena is an independent filmmaker from the Philippines and holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA)degree in Film Production from New York University. She has been the recipient of the Fulbright-Hayes scholarship, New York Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Fellowship, and the 13 Artists Award at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Dalena is one of the pioneers in Filipino Experimental Film (including her animated film that morphed into the first Filipino dance film White Funeral where she animated lahar debris in the sunken wastelands after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo), winning twice at the Gawad Urian for her short films for Asong Simbahan (1994) and Mumunting Krus (1995).

Ed Cabagnot

Former Division Chief, CCP Film, Broadcast & New Media Arts Division 

Edward Delos Santos Cabagnot currently teaches film-related courses at the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University, and DLS–College of Saint Benilde –his special teaching focus is on Contemporary Southeast Asian Cinema, Film Festival Management, and Philosophy and Pinoy Cinema. His served at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, as the Director of the CCP Media (Film, Broadcast & New Media) Arts Division. A founding member of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, he was in charge of the festival’s programming. He also held a brief stint as Editor-in-Chief of the Asia-Europe Foundation’s film360 online site. At the CCP, he organized alternative cinema festivals, film workshops and fora, and managed the longest-running indie film and video competition in Asia – the Gawad CCP Para Sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video (CCP Independent Film & Video Competition), which started in 1987.

Skilty Labastilla

Instructor, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Ateneo de Manila Unviersity

Skilty Labastilla teaches social sciences, film, and popular culture at Ateneo de Manila University. He is the Founding President of the Society of Filipino Film Reviewers, founder of the local cinema review aggregator Pinoy Rebyu, and member of the the Young Critics Circle Film Desk. He is on his third term as President of Ugnayang Pang-Aghamtao (Anthropological Association of the Philippines).

Ricky Orellana

Audiovisual Archive Head, MOWELFUND

He has worked variously as director, animator, film editor, sound recordist and art director on short and feature films, and documentaries. He began to make films while studying architecture at the University of Santo Tomas, and made experimental films at a workshop by German filmmaker Christoph Janetzko. His representative work is Sa Maynila, which won the Best Documentary award at the 3rd Gawad CCP para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video in 1989, and Best Student Film Documentary at the 8th FAP Student Motion Picture Awards in 1990. He also directed the documentary films on Philippine National Artists Arturo Rogerio Luz and Maestro Lucio San Pedro. He is a board member of the Animation Council of the Philippines (ACPI) and the Samahan ng mga Filipinong Arkivista para sa Pelikula (SOFIA). He is currently the Audiovisual Archive Head at Mowelfund and the Secretary-General at SEAPAVAA. He also teaches part time at the College of Saint Benilde School of Design & Arts handling Experimental Animation and Scriptwriting for Animation. He received a SEAPAVAA Fellow award at the 21st Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association Conference held in Manila last April 2017.

Mario AV Guzman

 Filmmaker

Mario AV Guzman is a director-cinematographer in the alternative and experimental film tradition. He received the 1991 Gawad Urian for Best Experimental Film for his short work Dung-aw, which also won 1st Place in the Experimental Film category of the 1990 CCP Gawad Para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Bidyo. His two documentaries, The Survivor and Binhi also won 2nd and 3rd place respectively in the same CCP Gawad in 1995. He is known for Malakas! Using ABCD for the Design of Sustainable Cities which he co-directed with Canadian writer Jeannette Tramhel in 2010. He was a Mowelfund Scholar of the Ateneo-Mowelfund Program for the Arts of Cinema and Television (AMPACT I) in Ateneo de Manila under the guidance of the late Fr. Nick Cruz, S.J. and the Mowelfund Film Institute (MFI) from 1982 to 1984. He was mentored via workshops by German Experimental Professors Ingo Petzke and Christoph Janetzko in 1985 and 1990 respectively. He learned cinematography from French DP Armand Marco, AFC, in Alliance Francès' scholarship program in 2001 and from American Cinematographers Michel Hugo, ASC's workshop in 1996 and as an apprentice of David Rakoczy in the international film Doomsdayer in 2000. He has direction, lighting direction, and chief lighting technician credits for full length movies, television features and documentaries with Star Cinema, ABS-CBN and GMA7 and Lakbay TV. Getting a 1st place in Gawad Alternatibo and a Best Experimental Gawad Urian confirmed his calling to be a full-pledged filmmaker.

2000s

CRITICAL RECEPTION OF GAWAD ALTERNATIBO: REDEFINING ALTERNATIVE CINEMAS THROUGH LOCAL FILM CRITICISM AND CINEPHILIA

For 35 years, Gawad Alternatibo benefited from the support of local film criticism and cinephilia, which played a crucial role in fostering critical discussions on Philippine alternative cinema. The past two decades saw the dynamics of local film criticism widening beyond the realms of entertainment journalism and film scholarship to include the emergence of self-made film sites, film blogs, online film groups, and personalized aggregator websites like Letterboxd. These digital spaces have collectively revolutionized the way cinema is engaged. The fusion of alternative cinema cinephilia and digitally-driven film criticism is best illustrated by the concerted and sustained film critics’ response to the CCP flagship project Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival. Cinemalaya endeavoured to deploy mainstream cinema distribution mechanisms to independent films and in the process overshadowed the long-running Gawad Alternatibo. The panel aims to prompt inquiries about the shifting and conflicting perceptions surrounding alternative cinema, its specificity as a mode of practice, its intended audience, and the role of film criticism in the political economy of alternative cinema in this era of disinformation and historical revisionism.

Panel Moderator

Angela Chaves

University Researcher, UP Film Institute

Angela C. Chaves is currently a University Researcher at the University of the Philippine Film Institute (UPFI) in the University of the Philippines-Diliman. She is completing her graduate studies, in Master of Arts in Media Studies (Film), also at the same university. She has over ten years of experience as an educator, administrator, researcher, and curriculum developer while serving the following institutions: the University of Santo Tomas, FEU Diliman, and FEU Institute of Technology. Her research interests include oral history in documentary filmmaking, archival exhibitions, memory studies, young adult cinema and literature, and BTS studies.

Panel MEMBERS

Epoy Deyto

Film Critic/Filmmaker, Missing Codec

Jeffrey "Epoy" Deyto is a writer and filmmaker currently renting in Marikina. He was a fellow of SGIFF’s Youth Critics Programme and Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival & FFD Jogja’s Film Criticism Workshop. His writings can be found in VCinema and his blog Missing Codec where his books, The Years of Permanent Midnight (2018), Crisis HD (2019), Post-Dilawan Cinema and the Pandemic (2020), and Kulturang Popular sa Pilipinas (2022) can be downloaded.

John Tawasil

Film Critic, Third World Cinema Club Podcast

A medical specialist by trade, John Tawasil has written for his film blog Present Confusion since 2005. He co-founded the podcast Third World Cinema Club in 2018, which to this day has made almost 150 episodes and counting.

Jason Tan Liwag

Film Critic & Journalist, CNN Philippines Life, Rappler & FIPRESCI

Jason Tan Liwag is a scientist, actor, writer, educator, and film programmer from the Philippines. He is part-time faculty at the Department of Biology at the Ateneo de Manila University. He is an alumnus of film criticism workshops in Manila, Rotterdam, Udine, and Yamagata, and has been on the selection committee and jury of several local and international festivals, including the Taipei Golden Horse Awards. He is the country's first member of FIPRESCI and is a two-time international voter for the Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, he was featured as one of Attitude Magazine's 101 LGBTQ+ Trailblazers Changing Today.

Red Sales

 Video Essay Critic

Red Sales is a writer, producer, and editor based in Metro Manila. He creates video content under the name "reisalte". His work focuses on Filipino and alternative cinema. He has participated in film festivals and film workshops. In his spare time, he enjoys experimenting with moving images and watching some good movies.

King Catoy

Video Manager, EngageMedia

King is an independent documentary filmmaker and alternative media practitioner from the Philippines. His roots in activism started as a student leader in the University of the Philippines Los Baños, where he took up Development Communication. He studied 16 mm film documentary production at the Mowelfund Film Institute and co-founded the film collective Southern Tagalog Exposure in 2001. In 2009, as the executive director of Mayday Multimedia, a video collective focusing on workers’ issues, he produced Ka Bel, a docu-drama about renowned labour leader Crispin Beltran. He became the multimedia director of the non-profit media group PinoyMedia Center, Inc. in 2012. During this time, he initiated the documentary series entitled Eskinita: Ang Alternatibong Ruta. He was part of the founding secretariat of AlterMidya Network, a national network of independent and grassroots-based media outfits in the Philippines. He produced various short documentaries and led the technical direction of Altermidya’s multimedia program from 2016 to 2019. Currently, King is completing an online program on Film and TV Industry Essentials from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
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Gawad CCP para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video, or Gawad Alternatibo for short, is the longest-running independent short film festival in Southeast Asia. 

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